1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to automation and validation techniques for designing electronic circuits. In particular, the present invention relates to automation and validation techniques for designing electronic circuits that are particularly applicable to system-on-a-chip type electronic circuits.
2. Description of the Related Art
As the level of integration advances, many complex logic systems can now be implemented on a single integrated circuit. Such an integrated circuit, known as “system on a chip”, includes a number of complex components (e.g., micro-processor, peripheral and memory controllers), many of which may be individually obtained as “off-the-shelf” electronic circuit designs from a number of vendors. These electronic circuit designs are known as “IPs1” to those skilled in the art.
In the prior art, debugging a system that includes a user design integrated with one or more third party IPs is difficult, as the designer of the user design often does not have complete control over the IPs timing and logical behavior at the interfaces between the user design and the IPs. For example, incorrectly behaving output signals of the user design may cause unpredictable behavior in the IPs, which may in turn be fed back into the user design to cause unpredictable states in the user design. Such errors are extremely difficult to diagnose and isolate. Thus, a design tool that provides the designer of the user design control over the interfaces between the user design and the IPs is desired. 1The term “IP” stands for “intellectual property.” Designers of these electronic circuits provide the designs to their customers in the form of data files which are readable by popular electronic design automation (EDA) tools. The customers of these vendors then integrate these “IPs” into their own circuit designs. As an IP vendor does not provide a manufactured article—the electronic deign is typically provided as data represented in electronic form (e.g., stored in a storage medium, such as a compact disk, or as a stream of bits downloaded from a server on the internet)—it has become customary in the art to refer to such electronic circuit design products as “IPs”.